Rhetorical Analysis Of Chris Paul's Speech On Racism

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Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner is some of many cases which a police officer killed an unarmed black man. The racism between whites and blacks have grown heavily and it is getting out of hand and needs to stop. Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, and Lebron James are four black males that are major public figures that disagree with racism and believes it needs to be demolished. At the 2016 ESPYS them four gave a speech on their opinion on racism. In order to convince the world that racism needs to end, they used allusions, personal examples as evidence, and the organized structure of the speech.

During the speech one of the rhetorical devices used the 4 men used allusions. Chris paul reflected on all the past major black male athletes that stood up to stop racism. He said “Generations ago, legends like Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, John Carlos and Tommie Smith, Kareem …show more content…

As Chris Paul was speaking he said “As a African-American man and the nephew of a police officer, who is one of the hundreds of thousands of great officers serving this country.” This is a real life personal example of Chris Paul's life. As the audience knows Chris is a black male super athlete. This also helps the audience understand that a big public figure like him goes through the same thing like everyone else that disagrees with racism. He is comparing himself with the audience.

Another way the four athletes used to convince the audience, was appeal to reason. The organized structure of the speech. The men spoke in a certain order, they each had different parts to speak about racism. The order of the speakers was Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, than Lebron James. The reason of this order it was smallest public figure to the largest. The order of the speakers was to build the tension and save the best for last Lebron

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